Treecycle your Christmas tree

When you take down your Christmas tree, don't forget to treecycle. Pierce County residents who subscribe to yard waste collection service can treecycle their unflocked Christmas tree curbside. Other residents can recycle trees free of charge at designated locations.

Flocked trees cannot be recycled and must be disposed of as garbage.

The cities of Milton, Tacoma, Puyallup, and Ruston have special collection programs for households within their city limits. Contact your city hall or local garbage hauler for more details.

How to treecycle:

• Remove the stand, tinsel, decorations, nails, and staples from the tree

• Put the tree in your yard waste container for pick up on your regularly scheduled collection day

• The tree must fit into the closed container (you may have to cut the tree into pieces)

• If your tree isn't in the container, you may be charged for the additional pick up

The County composts all collected trees into PREP Compost (Pierce County Recycled Earth Products), a beneficial soil amendment that is popular with home and commercial gardeners. Treecycling also helps save valuable landfill space, and the resulting compost enhances soil quality, saves water, and reduces reliance on chemical fertilizers.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Sheryl Rhinehart, Pierce County Public Works and Utilities outreach coordinator